Caged Bird Sings
by BizarreSerenity
Summary: "Oh, she had dreamed of this for so many nights, tortured herself with the possibilities as she lay in her gilded cage, the unneeded luxury, waiting for him to return to her." Balia, BanexTalia. Rated M.


Talia was struck with the nearly unbearable urge to find her other half and surrender herself to his strong arms the moment she crossed the threshold of the temple that held The League Of Shadows, but, as usual, duty crushed the urge down to an itch as she and her companions made their way to her father's study to deliver their reports.

Each one of her footsteps echoed like a gunshot down the stone halls. Assassins parted to let them through as they walked briskly down the corridors, and as they grew nearer and nearer to her father's study, Talia grew impatient.

She could feel every smear of blood on her skin, hidden by the black hood that shielded her face and her dark tunic and trousers that she wore. Blue eyes were all that were revealed from the part in the fabric, eyes narrowed in annoyance. In one hand she clutched a leather folio filled with the blueprints that her father had requested from their victim; in the other was a stiletto, which she slipped back into its spring loaded sheath strapped to her wrist. The sheath's spring had broken during the mission, and needed to be fixed. The knife would stay in place as long as she didn't make any strenuous movements with that arm, but she wanted to be rid of the thing as soon as possible, along with her travel-stained clothes.

They reached the study within minutes and she rapped sharply but respectfully at the large, oaken doors, and waited.

"Enter."

At the sound of her father's smooth, cool voice she pushed the double doors open and swept in, the three guards assigned to the mission flanking her closely.

Ra's Al Ghul's study was modestly sized but elegantly furnished. There were Persian carpets spread on the floors, soft and expensively made. Bookshelves lined the walls, packed to the brim with old tomes and scrolls much older than Talia _and_ her father.

Her father himself was seated at a massive desk placed at the center of the room, ledgers and open books spread before him. He looked up from his work as she approached his desk, holding the folio out for him to take.

"It is done, father." Talia recited, as he took the folio from her hand.

She waited, head bowed, as he opened the leather case. She head the sound of paper being moved, shuffled, examined.

"Were there any complications?"

Talia looked up to meet his eyes, hands braced at the edge of his desk.

Her comrades were silent.

"None at all."

Her father gave Talia a slight nod, and closed the case, setting it beside the ledgers on his desk.

"I am pleased." He said, rising from his desk to step around it and place a kiss on her brow, a rather fatherly and very rare gesture of affection. "You are all dismissed, and may do what you wish until further orders are issued."

The three guards bowed and quickly left the room, leaving Talia with her father. The room was silent save for the cracking of the fireplace against the far wall, which gave the room a pleasant warmth that Talia found she could not enjoy.

"Thank you."

No sooner after the words left her, followed by a brief smile, did she too depart, causally and slowly until she left the hall.

Then she was striding as quickly as she could through the temple, her boots echoing off of the stone floors. She passed her room with little interest, instead heading to the lower levels of the temple where the initiates slept in small, cell like rooms.

Her steps where mechanic, a path she had taken hundreds of times. She could not stop herself from grinning beneath her hood as she neared her destination, hands clenched into fists and releasing over and over again with excitement.

Finally, she reached the last door at the end of the dimly lit hall, and entered as quickly as she could manage, her hand curled into the fabric of her hood to tug it free.

The small room was shadowy, its single window set high above and barred, letting in a few slivers of twilight. The tall, taper candle usualy lit on the single table in the corner was cold, the cot pushed against one wall empty.

Talia felt her heart sink, and her grin falter as her eyes found the blankets smooth and made perfectly.

His bed had not been slept in for days.

She closed her eyes for a brief moment and recalled her father's smile, his kiss, and instantly knew the reason for such affection to be bestowed upon her after a simple kill-and-recover assignment.

Her father had sent her protector out on a lengthy mission that would probably delay him for weeks, leaving Talia to seek other company.

She scowled as she leaned against the door-frame, and wondered when her father's attempts to separate her from the man who had raised her and protected her, would end. Her father seemed adamant to stop the still-growing bond between the two, which never ceased to puzzle her.

It was the one thing she would not do for him, The Demonhead, her father. He had her undying loyalty, her love as a daughter, her devotion and her service as an initiate. But she would not sever the bond she shared with the man who had cared for her in the Pit, the hell on earth she had been born and raised in.

Talia lingered in the cell for a few minutes, and left, pulling her hood low over her eyes. She was quickly slipping into a foul mood, and wanted nothing more than a long bath, a quick meal, and rest, if she could not have the reunion that she had so craved since the very moment she had left the temple for her assignment.

She stalked back to the upper levels of the temple, ripping the hood free of her hair with an angry jerk as she entered her quarters. The women who kept her rooms tidy had built a fire and laid out a nightgown for her, but she dismissed these items and instead dashed her hood to the floor before striding to her wardrobe, snatching a silken robe from a hanger, and storming to the bath house meant for female initiates at the other side of the temple.

The bath house was half full of female initiates tired from their respective missions and training, and took no notice to Talia as she scrubbed her skin, erasing the traces of blood from her face, hands, and neck. She had killed a drug lord hours ago with just a swipe at his throat, and changed afterwards before returning, but the blood had still lingered. She sat on the wooden bench occupied by six other women, and gave herself one last scrub before standing and descending the six steps into the tiled pool to rinse her skin and hair, the naturally hot water piped in from a nearby hot spring scalding her.

She felt clean and even more tired than before as she toweled herself dry in the changing room next to the bathing area, rubbing at her long mane of hair before slipping on her robe and belting it tightly shut. Her hair hung loose and tangled down her back, still damp as she left the bath house with her clothes folded in her arms, briskly padding barefoot across the stone floors to her room.

A covered tray awaited her, placed on the table of her small sitting room, as she thought it would be. The room was crowded with bookshelves, and cell-like compared to her bedroom, but it was warm and comforting as she sat down to eat. She had spent many an hour here when she had first arrived, separating herself from the other initiates, bald, skinny, and yearning for the company she once kept.

Her thoughts wandered to those of her friend, her protector, and his absence, and Talia found that she had quickly lost her appetite.

She left her half eaten meal and her sitting room, entering her bedroom once more. Her fire had been banked in its massive fireplace, the large red candles on the table that held her weapons lit for her, the nightgown put away. Talia sat at the end of the bed with her hairbrush in the glow of the few candles and her dying fire, alone with her thoughts.

The deep blue silk of her robe was a shade that matched her eyes, and was nearly black and shining in the flickering light, rippling as she tugged the brush though her damp curls. Her scalp stung as she ripped through a particularly nasty tangle, but she sighed as she finally tamed her hair down to a damp, rather orderly mass over her shoulders, and tossed her hairbrush in the direction of her wardrobe before climbing into bed, slipping beneath the covers.

Like everything else in the room, the bed was expensive and overly luxurious. Raised on a small dais, it was a four poster and stuffed with feather pillows and plump mattresses, sheeted in silk and satin sheets, down comforters, and blankets. Once more Talia found herself wishing for a simpler room, but knew that her father would not allow it. This was his way of setting her apart from the other initiates, of naming her his daughter, and worthy of comfort.

Talia gritted her teeth, and burrowed down under the blanket, unable to relax. She was tired, ever so slightly fatigued, but not enough to simply slip into sleep as she wished to. The noise of the Temple was drawing down to whispers, the wind and snow outside quieting to a dull roar. She buried herself beneath the masses of silk and satin, and breathed.

She could not sleep.

Talia had thought that perhaps washing and eating, routine tasks, would tire her and relax her to the point of sleep, but restlessness and loneliness curled like ice beneath her skin. She yearned for the company of her friend, longed to hear his voice and feel the strength of his arms.

And, she knew, longed for something he would never give her.

Her cheeks blazed crimson at the thought of his scarred hands gliding over her skin, of his heated breath at her throat, the chilly press of his mask at the crook of her neck. She felt a rush of heat flood through her veins as she pressed her face into her pillow, hands fisting in her sheets.

She knew it did her no good, thinking thoughts such as those. Wishing for things she could not have was foolish. Talia Al Ghul knew more than anyone about hope, how easy it was to kill, yet how strong it could grow. And it was hope that refused to leave her, a hope that spoke of a different type of bond, a different love, a different meaning of embraces and clasped hands.

She sat upright, head in her hands, and pushed the suffocating mass of blankets off of her.

Like a woman possessed she reached for her robe, which she had draped over the edge of her bed, and pulled it on. She tied it shut with shaking hands, and left her room, slipping quietly through the empty halls of the Temple, down to the lower levels. Her thoughts were running rampant, refusing to be silenced as she sought the one place she knew could offer solace, even unoccupied and lonely.

The lower-level hallways were empty and silent, the stone cold beneath her feet as she snuck down the corridor. It seemed that many of the initiates were either gone or asleep for the night, seeing as none of them were loitering in the halls. Talia was not a rare sight in the lower levels, but in her state of dress she was careful to stay quiet and avoid any sort of attention.

When she reached his door she slipped inside as silently as she could manage, closing the door behind her and leaning her back against it, finally allowing herself to breathe for the first time since she descended the stairs.

And, instantly, she knew she was not alone.

She was dreaming, Talia thought, as her eyes adjusted to the dark easily, spotting the form atop the cot pushed against the wall. She had to be dreaming, even as her eyes drank in every detail of his muscular form at rest, shirtless. A cruel dream at that.

Dizzy heat flooded her senses, and her breath quickened, palms pushed flat against the cold metal and wood of the door behind her.

"You are watching me in the dark again, little one."

His voice was deep, so deep, raspy and metallic through the cage of the mask strapped to his face.

"_Bane._"

He was supposed to be gone for days, _weeks,_ and her voice was a choked whisper.

Talia didn't remember moving but suddenly she was in his arms, coiled atop him, legs tangled with his, arms wrapped around his middle.

She nearly lost herself in the feel of him, the bulk of his arms wound tightly around her slender body, his heart loud against hers. She tucked her face into the crook of his neck as she often had as a child in the Pit, against the screams and terrors of that hellish prison, and was there that she learned to speak and breathe and _think_ again, even with the heat of his skin against hers.

"I have missed you, my friend." Talia murmured against his neck, tilting her head slightly as he smoothed her hair away from her face. "I thought that perhaps my father sent you away again upon my arrival."

She smiled as he laughed softly, his chest rumbling slightly with the sound.

"He did, but I have returned ahead of schedule." He replied, his voice low and gravely. "Much to his displeasure."

He smoothed her hair back again, and the pleasant feeling turned to fire, shivering its way down her spine in near violent shudders as her thoughts of before returned.

Trembling slightly from the way she was pressed against him, even though moments before it meant next to nothing if not comfort and safety, she leaned up, her hair falling over one shoulder as she pressed her palm flat on the muscular plane of his chest to support her weight.

"But not to mine."

Her words were husky, almost a rasp, stolen from her abruptly before she could hold them back, before she could grow afraid, lose what nerve she had managed to grow in his absence. Almost against her will, she pressed her hand to his cheek in a soft caress, meeting his dark eyes.

Talia did not know how to put her feelings into words. She had been taught to seduce, to entice in order to achieve victory in her mission, but she knew this, whatever it was, was a far cry from what she had been taught.

What she wanted could not be achieved by a few coquettish glances, bats of her eyelashes, flirtatious conversation and false touches to the hands, waist, wrists.

Talia knew that Bane would never make any advances towards her. He would never step over the boundaries that had been set the moment he had first held her in his arms, skinny, bald, screaming for her dead mother. He was her protector, the man who had raised her but not fathered her, kept her safe at all times, fed her, taught her.

Yet she _wanted_ him, wanted him in the most intimate of ways. Fire burned beneath her skin, pooling between her thighs in a torturous ache that she had never been able to soothe. Could he see it, the lust, no, the _want_ in her eyes? Could he not feel it in the heat of her skin, the rapid beating of her heart?

"I have missed you so very much." She breathed again, brushing the pad of her thumb softly against his cheek.

Trembling, she closed the distance between them, and pressed her lips to the spot, praying, _hoping_ that he would return her affections, that he would soothe the burn that had been haunting her for years.

She closed her eyes, and kissed him again, this time on his other cheek, a brush of her lips over his skin. For a long moment her heart sank, tears pricking behind her eyes, utter _rejection_ and _shame_ driving back the fire and the burn.

But then his hand moved, and her breath hitched as his fingers curled into her side, stroking the fabric of her robe over her hip.

She opened her eyes, and was robbed of breath and all intelligent thought when she saw the lust there, the hunger, and couldn't help but cry as relief crushed her very being.

"_Please._" The Demonhead's daughter begged the masked man beneath her, though she knew she did not need to do so. "_Please._"

His other hand smoothed down her back, down the silken fabric, slowly, fingers pressing over the notches of her spine until they tangled into the belt holding her robe closed.

Talia couldn't help the soft moan that escaped her when he tugged it loose, the length of silk discarded. She trembled as he parted the cloth, his eyes burning into hers as the slippery fabric slipped down to her elbows, baring herself to him.

She couldn't help pressing against him again, to feel her breasts against his own naked chest. His breath was a metallic, growled rasp behind his cage of a mask at the touch of her skin on his, and she bit her tongue to hold back another moan at the sound of it.

He tore the robe from her with a single wretch of the hand that had been resting at her hip, and she was bare, shivering atop him, at his mercy.

For a long few moments he did not move, did not touch her, and Talia's breath came in gasps as his eyes wandered over her body slowly, as if he were committing the sight of her to memory, as if such a thing might never happen again. Wryly, with the last threads of her sanity, she thought that _this_ _would_ happen many more times if she had any say in it.

"Bane…" She nearly whined, even as his hands smoothed down her bare back. Lightning arched beneath her skin at his touch, at the feel of those scarred, strong hands on her, but she wanted another touch, somewhere _else, _and she knew that Bane knew what she wanted.

He was silent, save for his rasping breaths.

Her hands had crept up to his shoulders, clutching at him even as she was pressed tightly atop him, but they started to wander, fingertips brushing the mass of scar tissue at his neck, made from a failed throat cutting in the Pit many years ago, years and years before her birth.

Swifter than she had ever seen him move before, even when he fought and killed, his hand clamped over her wrist and tugged it none too gently away.

Puzzled, she leaned up once more to watch him, her head rising from its place at the crook of his neck.

"_Bane._" She whispered, writhing against him as his grip grew tighter.

His hand on her back stilled, and his eyes burned into hers.

"What is it that you want?"

Talia nearly groaned aloud at the question.

Years and years of fire, of wanting, of _needing_, of sneaking glances at him when she thought he wasn't looking, of nights spent in her bed, caressing herself, eyes closed and thinking of him, and he wanted to _ask_ _her questions?_

She parted her lips, moistening them with a quick swipe of her tongue, shivering hard against him as if there was a blizzard at her back, howling, screaming.

"_Tell me._"

His voice turned into an angry rasp, frustrated, and tears rolled down her cheeks as the fire inside of her trembled, heat becoming blistering between her thighs, hot and slick.

"_You._" She whispered brokenly, unable to find the words. "_All of you. But-"_

She gasped for breath as his fingers dug into her hip, a menacing, threatening grip that he had never used on her before. He had always been gentle, caring, never bruising.

Talia would have a mark there, she was sure of it, yet it did not bother her.

"But _what, _Talia?"

It was her name that sent her over the edge, and she sobbed aloud as his grip grew even tighter, nails digging into her skin.

"I don't, I mean, I don't just want you to-"

He shook her hard when she quieted, so hard that she felt him down to her bones.

"_Say it!"_

His voice became a hiss full of fury, fury usually reserved for any threat against her person.

"I don't just want you to fuck me. I don't want you to have me and be done with it." She gasped, the words finally torn from her, from all the years of lusting and wanting after him quietly, of yearning for something more.

She looked at him, eyes wide and impossibly blue, frightened as they had when she had been a child, shaved bald, with gangly limbs and a mother who had been beaten and raped to death.

"I want to be yours."

The world was silent. It was silent and it was cold, quiet around Talia Al Ghul, frozen into many parts fused together at once. She could not move, now that the truth had been torn from her, could not breathe, and the tears dried and faded away until there was nothing but quiet and cold.

But then there was fire, and she was tilting, being moved, and she gasped as she felt _his_ weight on her, crushing, so hot that he could have been made of raw embers.

Bane buried _his_ face in the crook of her neck, his thigh nudging her knees apart and pressing between her legs, holding them open. She felt the chill of him, the cold metal of his mask dig into her skin, but the sensation was heavenly.

Talia had yearned for it for so _long._

"_YES."_

His voice was rough, raw, thundering in her ear.

She sobbed aloud as his hands slid over her, up her thighs in gentle strokes to trace her ribs with feather-like rubs of his fingertips.

"I have always belonged to you, Talia." He told her, as his thumbs caressed the curves of her breasts. "I have always been at your side, at your every whim and mercy."

His voice drew out into a long groan that was muffled by his mask, and she slid her arms around him, pulling him down to crush her again, palms pressed back against the muscles of his back, his massive, broad shoulders, her sharp, manicured nails pricking at his skin as she felt him, hard against her belly, even through the layer of cloth.

His hands wound into her mane of hair, fingers twisting into her curls.

"_Tell me._" He demanded, begging. _"Say it. Say that I belong to you."_

Surprise pricked at her even through the intense flames of desire, shock like needles through her veins.

She had come to his room for solace, consumed by thoughts and lusts she thought he would never be able to return, for boundaries to be crossed, eaten alive by the urge to surrender herself to him.

The moment she had seen him, known his presence, she had been ready to submit herself to him.

But here he was, begging for her reassurance, submitting himself, offering her everything.

"You are mine." She husked, her voice thick with desire and with the tears that threatened to spill again. "You are mine and I am _yours_, Bane, _mind, body, and __**soul.**_"

She heard his breath catch, the hissing of his mask growing louder as it gave him another dose of the medication that kept him alive, that starved the pain that threatened to end him away. She could feel his length throb against her at her words, as if they aroused him more than any touch could.

"Make me yours." She begged, her voice low, breathless, so soft that she thought for a moment that she might not have spoken, just thought the insistent plea. "Take me. _Fuck me. _Give me what I've wanted for _years_. Show me that you're _mine."_

As if to accentuate her words, she raked her nails down his back, and pressed her hips up against his when she heard him hiss, groan at the scratches she had inflicted.

He lifted his weight from her, and sank back on his knees between her legs. Talia watched him, her eyes half closed as he loomed over her, unable to resist trailing her fingertips over the muscles of his chest, down to the flat expanse of his stomach, fiddling with the fastener of his pants.

His dark eyes watched her, burning from deep within as she toyed with the button, her eyes shining pure sapphire in the darkness they had shared together, the darkness she had been born in, raised in, learned to walk in, to fight in and scream.

Gently, he pushed her back down so that she lay flat on his bed, hands at her sides. Her chest heaved as she struggled to quiet herself, and little groans and gasps tangled in her throat as he stroked his hands down her fevered skin, cries and sobs freeing from her lips.

He shushed her as his hands smoothed over her thighs, scar tissue and callouses rough on the soft skin that had never known any hands but hers, but exquisitely so. He crooned in Arabic to her as his fingertips brushed her folds, wet with her desire, murmuring about how beautiful she was, how radiant, how good he was going to make her feel.

He groaned that he loved her as he felt how wet he had made her, parting her with one hand and rubbing her softly with the other. He was a being of complete tenderness as he teased her, circling the swollen little bud of nerves with his fingertip as she mewled helplessly, arching up into his touches.

He told her she was a goddess in the language that he had taught her, that she was a goddess to be worshiped. That he was devoted to her for the rest of his days, and then after.

He had to press a hand over her mouth when he slipped the first finger inside of her to the knuckle, groaning himself when he felt her sex grip his finger hard, hot, wet.

"_Bane._"

Talia was going mad from his touches, _mad_, but if that was what if felt like to be crazy, the burn and the lightning beneath her skin like a thousand jolts of pleasurable shocking shivers, she would scream and cry and remain insane for the rest of her life, if she could just keep feeling this way with him, at her side.

She wanted him inside her so badly that she would've killed for it.

"I will not damage you." He told her firmly but gently, as he slipped another finger inside of her and pumped into her slowly, moving inside of her, stretching. "I will not hurt you. I will give you what the both of us so desperately want when the time is right."

His fingers were thick, large, rubbing at her walls as he slipped them in and out of her slowly. She snapped her hips against his hand every time his fingers pushed back inside of her, willing him deeper, faster, _harder_, until finally he complied and she was shaking and mewling past the hand he had pressed over her mouth. Fire coiled in her stomach, wrapping tighter and tighter around itself, and she wailed and bit his palm when he plunged them deeper than he ever had before, brushing and pressing _something_ that made lightning-like pleasure jolt down her spine.

"Good girl." He panted, removing his fingers, finally reaching for the fastener of his pants. Talia's head swam as she lurched into a sitting position, batting his hands away.

"_Let me."_

Her voice was hushed and raspy from the wails and moans he had coaxed from her with just his hands, and she exhaled in a sort of satisfied huff of breath when he allowed her to continue. She fumbled with the button for just a moment until it popped free, and she dragged his zipper down slowly, tilting her head up to meet his eyes.

They were dark, blazing as she tugged his pants down over his hips, eyelids half closing when she ran her hand down his hip, fingers tracing down his muscled thigh, until at last she brushed a teasing finger down his length.

He was bigger than she had ever imagined, but then again she should have suspected his size. Bane had always been made of strength and muscle, towering over even the tallest of men. He flinched at her touch, groaning softly as she wrapped a hand around his cock, squeezing ever so slightly.

He was hard, so hard, and Talia couldn't help herself as she sank low onto the bed, almost pressing herself flat against it before him, on her stomach. He watched her curiously, groaned again when she gave his length a slow, careful jerk. She leaned forward, lips parted, eyes never leaving his.

His moan was low, drawn out, tortured as she slowly slid his cock into her mouth, moving her tongue beneath his shaft as she fit all she could into her mouth. His hands tangled into her hair, the stinging at her scalp surprisingly pleasant, and she gave him a long, hard suck that made him tremble and groan.

He was harder in her mouth now, throbbing, hot. She had never done this before, never pleased or lain with a man, but her imagination had run wild enough over the years that she had some vague idea of what she wanted to do. She worked her tongue under his shaft again, her hands smoothing down his thighs as he bucked into her mouth, so hard that she gagged around him as his cock pressed at the back of her throat.

He shuddered, his moan breathless and desperate, and the hands in her hair tugged her hard, away, until he had to forcibly drag her cock out of her mouth with the momentum to get her to stop.

She looked up at him, puzzled as he shoved her down onto the thin mattress, his chest heaving, breath rattling and gasping through the prison of metal that hid his mouth. He held her down, with hands like steel vices, just breathing, eyes locked on hers. His length was pressed against her thigh, throbbing and hard, and she made a pleading, choked noise, grinding her hips against the hands that held her still.

He kept her pressed flat on her back for another moment before leaning forward, pressing his forehead to hers. His hands left her hips to clamp onto her knees, drawing them up and over his shoulders as he positioned himself between her thighs.

Talia's head swam, her heart crashing against her ribs as she struggled to take even breaths. Oh, she had dreamed of this for so many nights, tortured herself with the possibilities as she lay in her gilded cage, the unneeded luxury, waiting for him to return to her.

She felt the blunt head of his cock nudge at her center, and she gasped, pressing her hips forward to take him in. His grip on her knees slid to her hips and he held them still as he slid the very tip of his length into her waiting sex, stretching her, teasing her.

Talia threw back her head and cursed in every language she knew, _pleading_ for him to keep going.

Bane slid into her inch by agonizing inch, breath coming fast as lost himself in her slick, tight, _heat. _She was trying to move beneath him, to coax him in further, but he held her still even as she wailed, a hand once again pressed over her mouth. She bit viciously at his palm when he stopped, gasping for breath, and slammed her hips forward when his grip grew slack.

She screamed as she was filled, _complete, _delicious pain combining with the heat and pleasure that had building up for what seemed to be eons and eons of foreplay. She writhed, clawing at his back, aching for him to move.

His name was muffled behind the hand clamped over Talia's mouth, but it was still sweet, a prayer, a plea.

Suddenly, he pulled back, his length slipping from her even as she gripped him, squeezed around him. Her nails bit into his broad shoulders, and she parted her lips to curse him again when he slammed back into her, heat, pain, pleasure, _everything she had ever wanted_ blazing up like an inferno ready to claim her flesh and burn it from her very bones.

At first he was gentle again, much too gentle, deep thrusts that were slow, enjoyable, yes, but far too tame. She could feel the tenseness of him even through the fires of pleasure, knew her Bane was holding back.

"Take me." She babbled against his palm, as he continued to fill her slowly. "Hard. I want you to show me that you are mine, that you belong to _me._ I want you to prove to me that you will never leave me again, that you are worthy enough to stand at my side. _Give yourself to me, Bane!"_

Talia felt his movements slow, the burn receding into a smoulder, heard his breath turn harsh.

Something predatory glittered in his dark eyes among the fires of lust and the softness of love and care, something dark and devious and unknown to her.

Slowly, agonizingly languid, he pulled out of her, gripping her chin forcefully with the hand he held over her mouth, still muffling her sounds of protest.

"_Look at me._"

His voice was dark, rumbling in his chest, half growl, half human.

He hadn't needed to tell her; no, Talia had already been drowning in the dark depths of his eyes.

Bane entered her in a single rough, brutal thrust, a slapping of skin that jolted her and send a fissure of pain and pleasure through her veins. The movement forced her upwards even as he pinned her down with one hand.

It was then that Talia Al Ghul got what she had so yearned for in her gilded cage, what she had wished, prayed, and _hoped_ for.

Completeness. Devotion. Utter love and worship as Bane surrendered himself to her, cast aside their boundaries and his self control with it. He was wild, unrestrained, the monster of the tales that had spread like wildfire once The League took him from the Pit and brought her home to her.

He fucked her like ruthlessly, his thrusts maddening, teetering on the edge of pain as he pounded into her. She clamped her legs around his neck as he moved faster, his muscles rippling, flexing, sweat beading at her neck. She could do nothing but hold onto him and scream behind his hand, wail, score him with his nails as she gripped his back, shoulders, arms.

Until finally, there was fire.

It twisted around the two like chains, molten lava sent ablaze and thrust in place of their blood and hearts. She found completion first, with him buried deep, pressed against the spot that made her scream again and again, struggling to breathe as she was pulled closer, deeper, down, down, _down,_ into a white, suffocating abyss that hit her over and over, pleasure, pain, _Bane._

His name was wailed, screamed, drawn out until she could speak no more and then he was brought over the edge, clutching at her hips, gasping as she shuddered and contracted around him. He felt himself spill, and she was so _tight, _it was maddening.

Talia clutched desperately at him, felt the fire consume her completely, felt herself die from this heady mix of pain and pleasure and pure _love_ that radiated from her heart and outward.

And then she was gasping, sobbing, tears rolling down her cheeks as they were reborn together in the darkness once more, clutching at sweat soaked limbs. He pulled himself free of her grasp and held her in his arms as she trembled, the aftershocks of her orgasm still claiming her as he slipped them beneath the covers, cradling her as he had when she was still that bald, sickly girl-child in the pit.

Bane rocked her against him, his Talia, his goddess, his everything, the light that had brought him from the brink and back.

Talia clutched at him, gasping, and then she was flooded with a sort of hazy warmth that left her tired, blissfully so, relaxed and so at ease In his arms.

"Love you." She managed to murmur, eyelids fluttering closed, blue fading away. "Yours."

He closed his eyes and tucked her against his chest, exhaling when he felt the gossamer-soft touch of her lips against his throat.

"Yes." Was all he could manage, as exhaustion pulled him away from the waking world. "Always."

Ra's Al Ghul would exile him the very next morning after finding his daughter's bed empty, but Bane will remember these moments until she returns to him, for they are one, two souls, joined together.

Talia will break free of her gilded cage once more, and when she does, she will sing again.


End file.
